Happy Birthday, U.S.A.!      For us, July started out with an old-fashioned, small town celebration of the Independence Day holiday.  Our son-in-law, Matt, was pleased to have a four-day holiday from work at Pactiv and we spent some time helping to work on the new yard at their new house.   Two new retaining walls were completed...one in the front yard and a second in the rear.  In the front they chose some landscaping which also got planted, and in the rear, the three granddaughters chose plants for their own personal gardens. Thanks to the never-ending chore of moving the sprinklers and hoses,  baby green grass is finally starting to show and the house is beginning to look like a real home.    We took a break and went into Rockford one evening to see the movie, "RV."  Having spent a lot of time with us in our motor home, the McCurdys could relate to the situations and were able to predict the outcomes of the actions of the characters in the story.  Much of it was pretty unlikely, but we found ourselves laughing a lot.    On Tuesday, the 4th, we went into the town nearest the McCurdy's house, Winnebago, for the big parade.  Being a small town, there was only one school band but there were lots of other parade entries.  All of the churches, clubs and organizations for miles around were represented.  There were plenty of motor cycles, old cars, fire trucks and a big long display of antique tractors.  We were standing near the beginning of the route at the high school and the head of the parade came back to us an hour later, before the end had gone past us!   After the parade, we walked to the "downtown" area of Winnebago and took our seats to watch the "First Annual Bed Race."  The police chief of Winnebago had challenged the police chief of Pecatonica (the town about 10 miles away where we are parked at the Winnebago County Fairgrounds) to a race through the center of town riding on a bed.  The beds were pushed by members of their respective police departments.  And the winner was....Winnebago!  After an afternoon swim at the lake in Westlake Village (the sub-division where Ann and Matt's house is located) and a cook-out dinner we went back to Winnebago for the big fireworks display.  It was a great 4th!

The following weekend was the Westlake Village Community Picnic.  It was very well organized and a fun day for everyone.  The day started out with a fishing derby (where Coffey caught her first catfish!) and moved on to boat rides, golf ball shoots across the water, carnival games and crafts for the kids, a water balloon toss and three-legged races on the beach for all age groups, pool contests and finished off with a delicious BBQ dinner and Karaoke following.  Best of all - there was no charge.
 
 
 

There's finally something green in the yard to cut, and a new retaining wall with a few shrubs...a nice home for Ann, Matt and the girls (oh, and Jack the dog, too!)	The "Circus Train" in the Fourth of July Parade in Winnebago, IL.	And the winner of the bed race is....the Winnebago Police Department!   (They're also good at handing out parking tickets to softball fans during tournament games.)	According to Merrick, the best part of the T-ball game is the snack passed out at the end of the game!

Tom making an attempt to hit a ball across the pond at the community picnic contest.  Let's just say he didn't win first place.	After a short lesson in the kayak, Coffey thought we should buy one from the salesman.	Merrick and some of the neighborhood girls enjoyed the water-balloon tossing contest.  Merrick and Jenna (on the left) won first place in their age group.	It's a hit!  Coffey helped her team place 4th out of twelve teams in the league.

The weather during most of our stay in Winnebago County was almost "perfect."  Most of the time we had bright sunny days with temperatures just warm enough to enjoy the pool or the lake and to be outside into the evenings as we attended our granddaughters' ball games.  We got to see a few of the surrounding small towns as we traveled to watch some of the contests.  Coffey's team played in a tournament and won several games.    We continued to take some "day trips" in the area and to have the girls stay with us on the nights before our daughter Ann's early work calls.   Our "day trips" included several of the Rockford Park District attractions.  The Tinker Swiss Cottage is actually a large house built over 150 years ago on a cliff overlooking Kent Creek.   The owner built a suspension bridge to the other side so that he could court his future wife who lived in a mansion on the other side. Once they were married, they stayed in her house (now torn down) in summer and his cottage in the winter.  It was interesting to see how people lived many years ago and learn some local history from the excellent tour guide.   At Sinnissippi Park Music Shell we attended one of the weekly performances in the "Imagination Station" series for children.  T. Texas Terry entertained with rope tricks and comedy.   A trip to the Discovery Center Museum in Rockford was fantastic.  It claims to be one of the top children's museum's in the country and it lived up to its reputation.  All of the exhibits provided hands-on experiments for visitors to work...and almost all of them did work.  They have a large outside playscape with exhibits as well.  We had a fun afternoon.  (Free after 1pm on Thursdays!)

Saturday, July 15 was the final day of our 4-week stay in Winnebago County.  The weather forecast was for temperatures in the high 90's with high humidity...yuk!  And, our granddaughter, Coffey's, softball team had been playing in a tournament every night this week - and kept winning.  So, on Saturday we headed back to the ball diamonds for another game.  We took our spots in the shade with all the other grandparents we'd been getting to know all week...it didn't matter if we were on the visitor or home side...shade was the important factor with temperatures close to 100*.  One of the parents went to the local hardware store and rented a big canopy to put up for the girls.   They won the morning game which meant there would be another in the afternoon (and Tom and Matt's golf game had to be canceled) with lunch in a nice cool restaurant in-between.   Everybody moved to another diamond for the afternoon game which was very exciting - having to go to four extra innings for the win, which meant that Ann was able to get there from work for the end of the game.
 
 
 

The Tinker Swiss Cottage was started in 1865 by Mr. Tinker who was influenced by the architecture he saw on a trip to Europe.	Close Ann enclosed herself in a bubble at the Discovery Center Museum.	Some of us took the stairs, others, like Merrick, climbed through the holes from level to level to get to the second floor displays at the museum.	Coffey tested the speed of her softball pitch in the museum sports exhibits.

 

Close, Merrick and Coffey with their baby-sitters.	Daddy and Grandpa helping Close and Coffey learn a little about tennis on the Westlake Village court.	A neighborhood water-volleyball game at the Westlake Village pool.

On Sunday, July 16 we packed up the RV and pulled out of our spot at the fairgrounds.  The trip east through Chicago went well and traffic wasn't too bad, taking us not quite four hours from Pecatonica, IL to Gary, IN.  We continued on to Michigan City where we took a break at the outlet mall and then went on to Hartford, MI.  We had planned to stay in a rest area that night, but with temperatures near 100* and the humidity almost the same, we decided that $8 for an RPI campground (American Campground) with electricity to run the A/C was well worth the cost.  On Monday we went on to Jackson, MI to visit again with Mary's mom and step-dad.  We had a great visit with them and enjoyed dinner out at Panera with several hours of card games afterward.  Just about the time we were ready to go to bed, the winds picked up and brought us a fantastic thunder and lightening storm with some good rain.  Mary had opted for a night inside in the A/C while Tom braved the heat, humidity, rain and wind and was rocked to sleep in the RV.

We arrived back at the Vine Camp and Lodge in Temperance, MI around noon on Tuesday, July 18.  The greater Toledo area had been having rain storms periodically ever since we had left a month before.  Many of the city streets and homes have been continually flooded and not surprisingly, residents are rather upset.  At the campground, the small lake in the center had risen up over its banks, covering most of the sandy beach and the owners had to rent pumps to pump water OUT of the lake.  Luckily, our gravel lakefront site was not compromised by the water.  The weather for the rest of the week was almost perfect.  We had made quite a schedule for ourselves with various errands to take care of while in our "home" area which we sandwiched in-between meeting various relatives and friends for meals and visits.   Tuesday it was Mary's brother Bill and his wife, Beth,   On Wednesday night, with friends Bonnie and Don Wolfe we helped to celebrate the 37th anniversary of our good friends Kathy and Dennie Dew.  We got together again with Bonnie and Don on Thursday, and Friday with former neighbors, Dick and Liz Lehto and had several visits during the week with Tom's mom at the Spring Meadows Senior Community.  Then on Saturday we attended the wedding of Kathy and Dennie's daughter, Molly, to Jeff, and on Sunday,  a wedding brunch.  It was a great weekend.

A great weekend until......we returned home to our spot at "The Vine."   All was well until we went back inside after having moved the RV from a non-sewered site back to one with a full hookup, and were confronted with the strong smell of ammonia...a new experience for us, but one we'd read about.  Investigating, we found our fears were correct...our refrigerator/freezer had lost the contents of the cooling unit.  So, it was off to the home of friends Linda and Bo Bodine to donate the contents of our freezer to theirs and to the store for lots of ice to keep the refrigerator section cool.  The good news was that the whole fridge got cleaned out!  After a few more errands and a visit with Tom's sister Judy and her husband Ron on Monday we were back on the road on Tuesday.  We went straight to Nappanee, IN and the Newmar Factory Service Center.  As luck would have it, we already had a scheduled three-day appointment for warranty service, so we added one more item!

At the factory service center camping area we ran into Jim Harpold...one of our buddies from our trip to Puerto Penasco last January.  Jim joined us for dinner as we tried to use up more of the food in our fridge, and we enjoyed catching up on his news.  His wife, Mary had stayed home in Michigan to work, while Jim supervised service on their coach.  As expected, the service tech arrived at our coach at 6am on Wednesday morning, went over our list of items to work on and took the RV inside.  We spent the day reading and visiting with other Newmar owners in the lounge and on the big front porch of the service office.  Around 3:00 the parade of coaches returned to the camping area.  Our fridge had a new cooling unit and was running well, our sofa was missing and several other items had been completed.  The routine on Thursday and Friday were much the same with a trip to the Goshen, Indiana Wal-Mart and lunch at Panera thrown in.         We were "checked out" of service around 2:00 on Friday afternoon, but had to wait till they brought all the coaches out at 3:30.  At that point we decided it was too hot and too late to head into the Chicago area, and settled in for one last night at "Camp Newmar."  That gave us the time to inspect and try out all the repairs.  We figure we got close to $5000 in warranty parts and labor over the three-day stay - so no complaints!  We ended up with the fridge cooling unit, a new front TV (and sound system reconnected), a fully reupholstered sofa with a new air mattress, both heat pump/AC units repaired and with new covers, both slides adjusted, bathroom floor rebuilt, new door on the washer, new battery straps, new sewer compartment door (painted to match), bedroom light fixtures repaired, several rubber gaskets repaired/replaced, Corian stove top replaced twice....all in all...lots of great work accomplished!

 We departed "Camp Newmar" on Saturday morning, July 29.  We took Route 6 up to I-94 and made a fuel stop at the Lake Station, Indiana Flying J...contributing $2.87 per gallon for 100 gallons to the cause.  Continuing on across I-80 and up I-39 to US 20, we arrived back at the Winnebago County Fairgrounds in Pecatonica in the late afternoon.  It was about 95* and we were glad that our "special site" was waiting for us with power enough to run the A/C.  For our evening entertainment we walked over to the fairgrounds grandstand to watch the action at the "Battle at the Border Motocross Races."  The center of the arena has been molded into a hilly dirt (and muddy) track and the race action of bikes and four-wheelers with drivers of all ages was constant for several hours.  It's a family affair with many RVs and trailers all set up with work and relaxation areas.  Interesting...but not something we'd want to be involved in.
 
 

Molly and Jeff Perlaky in Maumee, OH	4-wheelers in action at the "Stateline Battle at the Border", Winnebago County Fairgrounds	Our "home" in Illinois at the Winnebago County Fairgrounds in Pecatonica

The last two days of the month lived up to the weatherman's predictions......a "heat advisory" was issued and we had temperatures near 100* with high humidity.  We clung close to the A/C while spending time with the grandchildren.  We did make one trip to the pool but it was full of lots of people and a layer of floating sunscreen.  The forecast for the beginning of August looks much the same...but that's "tradition" for our time with the McCurdy's!